External game drive

[mrDMxtreme]

I would like to buy a SSD and an external enclosure and just use that to put a few games on. This is because I'm at uni and I travel from my place at school (where I have my main rig) and home (where I left my parents my old heavy gaming laptop) and I would like to be able to have my games with me.

So my question is what kinda of interface I need. I have only found 1 enclosure that has BOTH USB 3.0 and eSATA, which are rated at 5Gbps and 3Gbps respectively. So is this fast enough or is it overkill for running a game? Also would usb2.0 be too slow (it's rated at 480Mbps)?I have USB 3.0 on my desktop but the older gaming laptop only has usb2.0 and eSATA which is why I can't have just USB 3.0.

So does anyone's have any ideas or experience with something like this? Will the game play be smooth?

Edit : I found this link which seems like even usb2 would be just fine... Can someone confirm or explain

thanks

 

[fcb]

For smoothness and especially because of the way games are, I'd suggest an eSATA connection if it's available. eSATA performs exactly the same way as the onboard SATA. Since you have a laptop that supports eSATA, that would be great. If you are usually just storing and retrieving files and whatnot, USB 2.0 will be sufficient.

 

[mrDMxtreme]

for storage i have a 2tb external (usb2.0&eSATA) my question was about games.

thanks for the info, so eSATA should be pretty good if it can preform like an interal drive

(and usb3.0 is actually even faster then that

so even better)

 

[fcb]

Yup you shouldn't have any problems with it. The idea is the same for storage and in your case, storage for installed games; you still wouldn't really want to use a USB connection with a SSD. It will still just max out at the USB 2.0 transfer speeds. Of course, there isn't anything wrong with it either as you'll just have to be patient with games being loaded. Hope this is making sense?

An eSATA connection will definitely be sufficient for games and any media related content. USB 3.0 is an advantage to have as well.